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Back in the LD days, such a Collection was released. It contained:

The Jazz Singer (1927) 88 minutes
The Singing Fool (1928) 105 minutes
Say It With Songs (1929) 95 minutes
Mammy (1930) 84 minutes
Big Boy (1930) 68 minutes
Wonder Bar (1934) 84 minutes
Go In To Your Dance (1935) 89 minutes
The Singing Kid (1936) 85 minutes

Also contains the four trailers from Mammy, Wonder Bar, Go In To Your Dance and The Singing Kid, plus the Warners Brothers/Tex Avery cartoon:

I Love to Singa (1936) Colour CAV 8 minutes

Here's a review for that set.

Meanwhile in Brazil, 2 DVD collections of the aforementioned titles have already been released, which could mean that new, restored copies may be at hand for future R1 editions.

Warner recent DVD releases seem to somehow mirror past LD editions. If this one proves true, my only regret is that Wonder Bar doesn't make its way onto a second Busby Berkeley set.

The Jazz Singer is due for it's big anniversary DVD debut next year. Given that Warners has been releasing a lot more of the Signature Collections (and similar things like the Ford/Wayne box) and debuting special editions as part of them, I'd think a Jolson collection is not out of the question.

Of course, they have yet to really deal with the blackface issue, which is sure to light a fire under somebody, no matter how cautiously Warners proceeds. Then again, nobody raised an eyebrow when they released Swing Time (with Astaire's blackface tribute to Bill "Bojangles" Robinson), but that's not nearly as infamous as Jolson's schtick.

Matt wrote:The Jazz Singer is due for it's big anniversary DVD debut next year.

If you're right (and Warner is faithful to its original release date), then we might expect this one around October, 2007.

As for the whole blackface issue, I never find it personally insulting when I watch an old film that portrays black people in "racist" terms. Because that's just what it is -- an old film. Artistic integrity, however, is an altogether different thing and like David Hare, I sometimes feel that Jolson was riding the jazz bandwagon and making the most of it, whilst somewhat "bleaching" it for the audience's sake.

But his contribution was nonetheless important and a big part of film history and entertainment in general. For that reason alone, they should be studied and available to the buying public. But if we're talking "distasteful" here, I find THIS and THIS much more "distasteful"...

Lino wrote:As for the whole blackface issue, I never find it personally insulting when I watch an old film that portrays black people in "racist" terms. Because that's just what it is -- an old film.

Not being black and not living in a country with a long history of race anxiety is going to temper your sensitivity to this issue.

Also, your "it's old!" defense borders on the insulting, especially because your post seems to imply that since you can get over it why can't everyone else?

Lino wrote:But his contribution was nonetheless important and a big part of film history and entertainment in general. For that reason alone, they should be studied and available to the buying public.

Agreed. Distasteful as it is, like Birth of a Nation it needs to be studied to understand film and its history, and supressing such movies is counter-productive. In this case providing the proper context is the best route.

You sure don't waste an opportunity, do you? In fact, I was expecting you to crawl right out of your (ass)hole. Well, hon -- I'm still not giving you my cell phone number.

I didn't realize there was a Lino/Sausage beef! I guess I've been spending too much time shoving YilmazGuney's face into the mud to notice.

Lino wrote:You sure don't waste an opportunity, do you? In fact, I was expecting you to crawl right out of your (ass)hole. Well, hon -- I'm still not giving you my cell phone number.

On the contrary, I've wasted dozens of opportunities to call you out on your bullshit. I hope you're not unaware of the irony of you telling anyone else that they've crawled out of their anus.

Frankly, I'm not surprised you've once again avoided actually defending your post in favour of drama queen antics, ad-hominems, and other childishness. Also amusing is how often you seem to mistake hostility for attraction.

If you don't want to be called out then stop trying--either obliquely or directly--telling other people how they should watch film.

Matt wrote:I didn't realize there was a Lino/Sausage beef! I guess I've been spending too much time shoving YilmazGuney's face into the mud to notice.

Me either. For the same reason, maybe?

Hmm, beef? Was that a pun you sly devil?

davidhare wrote:Jolson is altogether another kettle of fish. Someone who did blackface constantly as a profesional schtick. And his music is nothing but sentimental white mush masquerading as black jazz.

What, may I ask, does Jolson have to do with jazz, white or black? He was a part of the vaudeville/broadway tradition, period. His public debut (and from all accounts, the solidification of what was to be his style for the next four decades) was made just before the turn of the 20th century, when jazz was what? Not yet invented! Very little of his repertory was even part of what would be adopted by jazz musicians. If it's sentimental white mush, it's right there along with the rest of the period on the broadway stage, but that's nothing to do with his masquerading in any MUSICAL style remotely jazz or black in nature.

If the title of the film "The Jazz Singer" throws one off the scent, that's due to the film producers misunderstanding of jazz, and/or the way his character's father in the film looked on any singing that wasn't of a religious nature (as a cantor, also a part of Jolson's upbringing musically).

From Allen Lowe's That Devilin' Tune: A Jazz History 1895–1950:

Al Jolson isn't obscure, and it's easy to laugh about the title of his best-known film, The Jazz Singer, not to mention his excursions into blackface. Yet Jolson was one of the first to make us realize that some early singers had a much better idea about swinging than some early accompanying musicians. In a way which would become commonplace in the 1920s and 1930s, Jolson, in the 1910s, showed how a leader or soloist could swing a band, could drive the rhythm home like a spike and make accompanists work that much harder. Not all of his records show such aggressiveness, but in this he was typical of popular singers of the day, who dropped their work on the public like fragmentation grenades, sending some pieces to the ethnic category, others to ragtime, and so on, into the conveniently marketed niches of the day.

Jolson's reputation is in serious need of rehabilitation. To a current generation of jazz audiences he's something of a joke, a black-faced remnant of racist showbusiness conventions. Lest we forget, however, it must be said that in strictly musical terms he was a great singer, one of the first to present an idea of vocal swing. Before him most recorded vocalists had little idea of how to rephrase melody. Popular style was communicated less through rhythmic improvisation than through aural mannerism, through gruff enunciation or somewhat crude and over-simplified dialect. Operatic quiver was reduced to flattened song/speech or quick vibrato.

Jolson borrowed some of these approaches, discarded others. He knew how to sing in what we would now call a jazzy way: sometimes anticipating the beat, at other times lagging behind it, creating a new melody over an outline of the original. He was an overwhelming force in early pop singing, his methods imitated in some way by nearly every singer of the time, both male and female. Recordings like "That Lovin' Traumeri" and "Rockabye Your Baby with a Dixie Melody" show the bite of his early work, and why no one, before Louis Armstrong, had more influence as a singer. Only Armstrong's more raddical approach would supersede Jolson's, though the older man had many more productive years of strong pop/jazz singing. He held on through the power of personal charisma and premature nostalgia though, except on a movie marquee, he was not generally known as a jazz singer. His recordings tell us that the truth was more complicated.

Mr_sausage wrote: not living in a country with a long history of race anxiety is going to temper your sensitivity to this issue.

If you're referring to Portugal I don't know if that's entirely true. Portugal had it's fair share of African colonies and of course had a big role in the slave trade. Nowadays, big cities have a large black population originating from the former colonies. If this has lead to race anxiety or a situation even remotely comparable to that of the US, I don't know. But Portugal certainly is familiar with some of the same racial issues.

Thank you, Miguel. Oh, and Sausage: as far as I'm concerned, I don't recall ever telling people how they should watch films. I was merely giving my opinion --

Lino wrote:As for the whole blackface issue, I never find it personally insulting (...)

Are you personally black?

I'm not being smarmy, it's an honest-to-god question -- that seems to have been Sausage's primary point, and it is a very good one. I don't find it personally insulting, either, because it isn't mocking me. I am, however, aware that it is distasteful, even if at the time it wasn't considered as such.

Of course, I am also strongly of the belief that it should be made available as an artistic work. Ignorance only begets ignorance.

-Toilet Dcuk

toiletduck! wrote:Are you personally black?

No, I'm not. But while we're at it, I would sincerely like to read some comments about Al Jolson by our own forum member, David Ehrenstein (if he himself doesn't mind, that is).

Miguel wrote:

Mr_sausage wrote: not living in a country with a long history of race anxiety is going to temper your sensitivity to this issue.

If you're referring to Portugal I don't know if that's entirely true. Portugal had it's fair share of African colonies and of course had a big role in the slave trade. Nowadays, big cities have a large black population originating from the former colonies. If this has lead to race anxiety or a situation even remotely comparable to that of the US, I don't know. But Portugal certainly is familiar with some of the same racial issues.

Yes, of course, many countries are familiar with racial tensions to some extent. However, I never once got the impression while I was in Portugal that it was anything close to the degree of the United States.

I suppose to focus it better would be to say that not living in a culture that traded on black-face stereotypes is going to temper possible offense at The Jazz Singer.

Lino wrote:and Sausage: as far as I'm concerned, I don't recall ever telling people how they should watch films. I was merely giving my opinion --

You've done it a number of times, most memorably when you told everyone in the King Kong (2005) thread, in response to some negative criticism, how they should properly watch the movie, without yourself having ever seen it.

As for this thread, although you were not telling people outright how to watch films, you were implying by your statement: "that's just what it is -- an old film," that people are not watching this film properly (as an "old film" with I assume"outdated views"), which is the cause of their becoming "personally" offended. Your post has the tone of "well I'm not offended, so why should other people be?" I realize you are giving your opinion, but there is nothing "mere" about it. Opinions must be answered for.

I'm not trying to pick on you--this has little to do with you personally. It's what you have written that's provoking.

This thread is hot! Look at all the infighting and navel gazing I've been missing out on...

I think Warner has done a fairly good job so far placing warnings and trying to distance their current beliefs from the political-incorrectness of certain films in their catalog. However, there's a big difference between something like Cabin in the Sky and The Jazz Singer... something that really requires a commentary or even some honest featurettes to put straight. But then again, I feel like Birth of a Nation really requires a damn lecture, plus the existence of something like DJ Spooky's Rebirth of a Nation, just to justify its existence. Theres a certain point where the historical value can barely be justified by appalling racist dreck. Not that we should go burn all the copies and never study it, but I find it hard to justify ever watching it for anything other than scholarly purposes. It's just not entertaining.

//

davidhare wrote:If you think Jolson Swings youre a total honky! Kern swings, thousands of people swing. NOT Jolson. This is supremacist/revionist crap.

One of the most difficult things about approaching popular music from the first two decades of the past century is the fact that so much of it is, as you point out, unswinging and often racially embarrassing. And the lack of swing is a big deal, too - our ears have become so accustomed to syncopation that it's difficult to remember (or believe) how recent a development it is. There's a fascinating outtake of a Lotte Lenya / Louis Armstrong duet on "Mack The Knife" from the 1950s in which Louis coaxes her, over and over, to better syncopate her phrasing. She can't do it. "That's easy for you," she laughingly tells him as he spots her with animated "booms". I remember Gary Giddins writing, in reference to this album outtake, "Today, few 10-year-olds would have any difficulty mastering that rest. Thanks largely to Armstrong, we live in a syncopated world."

Add the cork to the lack of swing, and you have a very uneasy relationship with modern audiences. And I agree with you that there's a sense of revisionism in insisting Jolson "swung". His claims to have "invented" black music are offensive and stupid. There's only a few songs in his repertoire hinting at anything but the most peripheral relationship to syncopation and jazz phrasing. But not many people did swing back in, say, the teens. I'm not even sure the great Bert Williams, forced to blacken up himself (much to his personal disgust), would get high swing ratings - sounds awfully ricky-ticky up against Holiday, Vaughan, etc. Perhaps it's best to look at figures like Jolson, Williams and Eddie Cantor less as jazz singers, or even jazzy singers, and more as modern pop singers - heart on sleeve emotion, witty lyrics, etc.

And make no mistake, there is talent underneath that awful cork. I'm reminded of another Giddins piece in which he interviewed the great singer Avon Long during the run of Bubbling Brown Sugar, in which Long played Bert Williams. When asked who he admired most when starting out, Long specifically mentioned Eddie Cantor.

"I grimaced and asked if he wasn't offended by the blackface. He sat up and asked heatedly, "Do you think black people are stupid?" "Of course not," I sputtered. "Well," he crowed, resuming his reclining position and fixing me with a cunning smile, "don't you think we can appreciate genius, too?" It was Long who allowed me to look anew at a generation of performers I had reflexively rejected."

Now, Stan Kenton. There's somebody who couldn't swing.

What does that say about Louis Armstrong, who likewise had huge audiences by the turn of the decade? (Or Duke Ellington not much later?)

One thing that troubles me about this debate (putting all the vitriol aside, or rather just ignoring it) is how saying something is "pop" as opposed to "jazz" is tacitly allowed to be a kind of insult, or at least a demotion. (Please correct me if this is a misapprehension.)

One thing that the Lowe book I excerpted above challenges is the purism that produces that sort of logic, the idea that "jazz" exists as some separate strand of American popular music, arising from popular forms but almost immediately establishing a kind of solitary teleology. One of the questions Lowe repeatedly asks, concerning this or that record from the 1910s, is "Do we has jazz?" The answer is usually some version of a different question, "Well, what is jazz?" Jolson's early records can claim to be as anticipatory of jazz as many others by black and white recording artists, including people working in genres like ragtime and military bands.

That said, surely Jolson didn't swing in the way that Louis Armstrong or Bing Crosby later swung, and by 1927 it was probably clear to anyone with an appreciation for jazz as it was then understood (including Jolson himself) that Jolson was not singing jazz, not exactly. (He might have been "jazz" to my Russian-Jewish grandmother, the same way Shania Twain might be "country" to a truck driver in Stuttgart. But who cares? These aren't judgements of quality.)

But there is a real syncopation there that puts him "ahead" of many of his recorded contemporaries, at least in the 1910s. Listen to Jolson's record of "You Made Me Love You" (1913): http://www.sendspace.com/file/3zgi8p. I think anyone listening to this record would recognize a singular stylist. But as for "swing," listen to the way he sings around the beat around 1:30 ("you know I do, 'deed I do, yes I do" etc.)

One of the great things about Jolson is the way he slips--sometimes almost imperceptibly, sometimes very bombastically-- from pop bathos to something slyer and more "jazzy." He straddles two conceptions of rhythm and uses them to oppose or compare two different ways of relating to a lyric. His blackface, troubling as it may seem now to some, was another "abili" that provided him with a wide range of attitudes to strike in the course of a song.

Strangely enough, The Jolson Story captures some of this. It features Larry Parks lip-synching to a boatload of tunes recorded by Jolie himself. I would recommend this film. Jolson's biography is naturally bent a bit to conform to Hollywood conventions, but the conventions also bend to his (not terribly dramatic, in fact) biography, and the result is a strange kind of stasis that puts the songs front and center. The result (for me at least) was hypnotic, and left me in awe of Jolson's talents. And I don't believe anyone utters the word "Jazz" in the course of the film--until Jolie goes Hollywood, anyway.

And someone ought to mention one of Jolson's greatest acolytes, Judy Garland.

davidhare wrote: But please don't read me as ascribing some heirarchical status to either jazz or what's far too loosely called Popular music.

Only too true. Talk about a can of worms. Pop has, unfortunately, become a loaded term these days. Where does it start, or stop? Louis? Jelly Roll Morton? Sinatra? Howlin' Wolf? Dylan? Al Green? Go-Betweens? All "pop," in theory, although not all popular.

I have it on good authority that The Jazz Singer is coming this year (80th anniversary). The commentary track was just recorded a couple of weeks ago.

By whom?

Lino wrote:By whom?

Dunno.

Matt wrote:

Lino wrote:By whom?

Dunno.

hopefully by donald bogle. i really liked his commentaries on tcm last year during their black history month.

Whoever it is, I hope they don't just use it as an 88-minute opportunity to apologize for blackface. The only reason anybody knows about this film 80 years on is because of its major importance to the coming of sound to the cinema, certainly not for Jolson's timeless minstrelsy. It's probably asking too much for any commentator to discuss competing sound technologies, the major gamble that Warner Bros. made by jumping into sound almost exclusively, and how that gamble paid off and made them a major studio overnight, but oh how it would be nice.

Matt wrote:Whoever it is, I hope they don't just use it as an 88-minute opportunity to apologize for blackface. The only reason anybody knows about this film 80 years on is because of its major importance to the coming of sound to the cinema, certainly not for Jolson's timeless minstrelsy. It's probably asking too much for any commentator to discuss competing sound technologies, the major gamble that Warner Bros. made by jumping into sound almost exclusively, and how that gamble paid off and made them a major studio overnight, but oh how it would be nice.

I totally agree with you. I can see them doing that with the Vitaphone material that is also being released.